Jul 18, 2012

It is currently month four of my unemployment since officially graduating from PSU. It's driving me crazy.

I understand that the economy is shitty and there are millions of people out of work all over the country and that many over-qualified people are having difficulties finding jobs as well, but it really doesn't make me feel much better at all.

I feel useless. I feel as though I lack value to society.

I can't even be a stay-at-home mother because I don't want to have children. I can't be a housewife because I'm afraid of marriage.

What the hell am I supposed to be?

Ugh. Back to completing more job applications and waiting quietly by my phone.

Jul 17, 2012

People dismiss my statement as a common one of young people with the implication that I, like many others my age, will reconsider as I grow older. Be it my "biological clock" or the desire to raise a family or happy accident, people think I will be a mother one day. Even my doctor doesn't think permanent contraception is worth talking to me about.

What they do not understand is my paralyzing fear of pregnancy and childbirth (as a former biology student, I know too many terrible details), incredible selfishness, long-term prescriptions to anti-depressants, and high susceptibility to postpartum depression.

I hear about people like Andrea Yates, the woman who killed all five of her children during a postpartum psychotic depression, and I fear for my unborn babies enough to never want to become pregnant. Neurologist Alice Flaherty, in the book I have been reading, discusses her PPD while looking at the link between literary creativity and mental illnesses -- it's basically cementing my decision.

I feel like children will not make me happy and I will make miserable children. Why bother?